Monday, April 25, 2011

Xiguan Congee & Noodle (西關粥麵) - ♕♕♕♕ 1/2

There’s been a few Wonton & Sui Gao Noodles and Congee shop openings, despite the concept being nearly beaten to death. Not that it is necessarily a bad thing! Two of these new shops even went to the trouble of replicating the historical traditional shop set up by making their noodle-cakes using Bamboo sticks via Manual Labour, which very few traditional shops still practice. 雲吞麵大王was promising on paper but quite disastrous in results. Xiguan Congee and Noodles in the meanwhile hits closest to home (and IS close to home!), even though they source their noodles from a reputed manufacturer! *This shop is unrelated to the same named shop in Yuen Long.

Xiguan Noodles and Congee -History: Xiguan (西關) from Guangzhou of China is famous for both of these Cantonese items… The story goes that back in the days, Xiguan noodle & congee stalls were bannered up with the words of 三楚, which literally translates into something related to the 湖南 hunan and 湖北 hubei provinces, where Northern style wontons (混沌) and sui gao (水餃) were invented before being transferred to the South, before then reinvented into a Cantonese version.

Interior is pretty clean -

Jelly Fish -Right amount of sesame oil. Crunchy. Very nice ~ 8/10

Pickled Vegetables -Apart from being quite appetizing, the acidity in these pickles is used to cancel out the noodles alkalinity.. Not too sour nor too spicy, these weres made very well ~ 8/10

Wonton and Sui Gau Dumplings in Noodles -This was pretty good, even better than 麥兆記 just around the corner from here. The noodles are made as per 西關 (Xiguan, Guangzhou) tradition which involves Lychee Wood based Alkaline, which infuses both aroma as well as a more bounciful texture! These noodles were very surprising to me, as it was both eggy and also carried the right texture, easily better than most shops I’ve tried many times including the bluffing 雲吞麵大王. Definitely one of the better ones around town… Soup had a good enough balance between pork bones, prawn roes, prawn shells and dried flounder fish, but could do with more of the latter two! Noodles wise ~ 9/10

Wontons - There were made with a fluffy cloud-like pastry skin. The prawns to me were crunchy but carried a slight but not overly obvious baking-soda influence and taste and also had pork. This might be compromised in formula, but overall it was generally acceptable ~ 6.9/10

Sui Gao Dumpling -HK and Canton Region are famous for Wontons, but one shall never forget the equally important Cantonese Sui Gao. For some reason the latter has become slightly neglected, but true Wonton lovers will always respect Sui Gao as well and that’s why I always order the combo’ed version whenever is possible! These were better than the wontons in this shop, with an even distribution of fungus, prawn, pork and bamboo shoots. ~ 7.5/10

Deep Fried Beef Briskets $36 -Multiple Michelin Starred Restaurants offer the same dish at 400% mark up and claim it as their Signature Dish. The version here does not lose to them. Although just a tad fatty as most briskets/flanks/plates can become, this was fried to the perfect non-oily state and was tender and full of beef flavours. ~ 9/10